The Weeknd could be a star if he wasn't so weird

[OnlyInCalifornia]

He doesn't have the look, personality, or stage presence to be a Chris Brown, Trey Songz type. He is lucky this darker r&b is being taken up people honestly because he would be completely behind the scenes putting music together if it wasn't.

 

[TrapHouse Rock]

yes lets continue doing R & B that's stale and not let new youngins come in and redefine the genre


that's exactly what we need


miguel got his lane, frank got his lane, weeknd got his lane. the easiest path to success nowadays is to find a lane and ride it out

 

[obarth]

Edit: dudes said the same about frank ocean's lame ass as well, yet while Miguel still gets spins on the radio, I don't hear frank getting spins outside of the 10pm love hour where they're still dropping "thinking bout you" every now and then

Yeeaahhh...I was with you until here

 

[Long Live The Kane]

If dude did traditional R&B instead of that abstract shyt he's doing now he would be platinum by now. Dude has the voice to be big in R&B but he's stuck on abstract music and videos that stoners and weirdo's seem to gravitate to. He's got the vocals but he'll never move major units as long as he's on that weird shyt. He has a niche but like all niche genre's you only get a small fraction of the market share.

Make a list of the all the dudes doing "traditional r&b" to have actually sold more than a million records in the past 3 or so years...because I can't name a single soul...the only way the weeknd could sniff a million units sold if he suffered a sudden onset of vitiligo, permed his hair, wore some contacts, learned some dance moves, started passing as white, got production from Timbo or Pharrell and started cranking out pop-friendly contemporary "blue eyed soul"

Dude is more successful than the overwhelming vast majority of current acts ACTUALLY making traditional r&b...your premise makes no sense....dude pretty much owes the entirety of the success he does have to a drake cosign and the fact that he makes "r&b...for people that don't really like r&b"

 

[Zebruh]

Thing about The Weeknd that made him as an artist so great before is...his mystique(or what's left of it)

When House of Balloons dropped, it was this random ass nikka that got a Drake co-sign making this dark, ambient, drug-induced music. nikkas didn't know shyt about him except that his tape and Frank Ocean's Nostalgia/Ultra were buzzing and building off each other because of competitive comparisons from fans. nikkas didn't even really know what he looked like. The anonymity behind the artist gave the music an edge. No videos, nothing. He manages to get shows off the strength of the tape alone when people don't even know his face for real like that.

He drops more music and more and more about who he really is starts to surface. Pictures and all that. How he fell out with his old producers and such.

Now we're at this point where the mysterious, dark singer that dropped a classic mixtape is struggling to maintain that identity. Since we know who dude really is now, he can't try to stay mysterious when he's becoming the opposite. So now he has to let the abstract component of his image carry that weight. Dude has a fanbase though, and he's doing better than you'd think. Won't be surprised if Kiss Land does well, despite the singles out being kinda whack.

 

[Ayo]

Weirdo = being high as fukk off of coke all of the time?

 

[Harry B]

I think the mystique worked in his favor, the weirdness attracted mad attention specially from the Hipster community which essentially made him hot.

 

[We Major]

The Weeknd ‏@theweeknd 2m
kiss land sept 10 th

 

[WickedGames]

@OnlyInCalifornia I'm in Southern Cali at the end of this month.

Where the hoes at in Cali in the summer? (First trip to the US)

 

[Long Live The Kane]

The thing that's actually holding both The Weeknd AND Frank Ocean back, is the fact that neither one of these n!ggas can sing worth a shyt and have not a single charismatic bone in their bodies far as star power on stage goes, put together...they're complete studio creations, and in a genre where live performance is of such importance, that's always gonna put a ceiling as to how far they can really go (same goes for Dream and Drake if he attempted to be a r&b artist fulltime)...Weeknd's whole "enigmatic mysterious" imitation prince gimmick can only go so far when he doesn't have prince's natural performance talent to go with it...even miguel out there looking like a thai lady-boy and guillotine leg dropping hoes on live network tv got him beat on that end...given his limitations as an artist, I think the level of success to be expected should waaaay below a million albums sold

 

[WickedGames]

The thing that's actually holding both The Weeknd AND Frank Ocean back, is the fact that neither one of these n!ggas can sing worth a shyt and have not a single charismatic bone in their bodies far as star power on stage goes, put together...they're complete studio creations, and in a genre where live performance is of such importance, that's always gonna put a ceiling as to how far they can really go (same goes for Dream and Drake if he attempted to be a r&b artist fulltime)...Weeknd's whole "enigmatic mysterious" imitation prince gimmick can only go so far when he doesn't have prince's natural performance talent to go with it...even miguel out there looking like a thai lady-boy and guillotine leg dropping hoes on live network tv got him beat on that end...given his limitations as an artist, I think the level of success to be expected should waaaay below a million albums sold

How many artists are actually selling a million copies.

Even Rihanna and Beyonce ain't going plat. Plat been over for Rnb singers. Weeknd and Frank are gonna be as big as an rnb star can get in 2013 though

 

[mozichrome]

havent really heard that many songs from dude i like

 

[Artificial Intelligence]

.......................

 

[OnlyInCalifornia]

@OnlyInCalifornia I'm in Southern Cali at the end of this month.

Where the hoes at in Cali in the summer? (First trip to the US)

Where you staying? If you are going to be in LA, gotta hit Malibu and Venice Beach. If you will be in San Diego, Gas Lamp district at night youll have so many drunken white girls around you won't even know what to do with yourself.

With your British accent you should be swimming in white girls.

 

[flipn50]

It's cool to be weird